


A Winter Day in Keramzin

by zemenipearls (ayaanle)



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Kidfic, Like forty years post-canon, Post-Canon, sort of lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayaanle/pseuds/zemenipearls
Summary: Alina and Mal are an old couple watching over the orphans as they play a game outside, and they beg for a story when they come inside.Written for Grishatober's Day 6 prompt: Saints & Stories
Relationships: Leoni Hilli/Adrik Zhabin, Mal Oretsev/Alina Starkov
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	A Winter Day in Keramzin

Alina watched the children as they played. Although her hair had always been white - now the lines on her face matched the hair, and her husband - still as dashing and strapping as ever - had a head full of gray. They huddled together under a blanket on the porch, watching the kids that played outside, bundled in furs and winter coats. 

“Who’s going to be the Sanktya this time?” little Olga called out. “I  _ never _ get to be the Sanktya!” 

“Fine Olga!” Kazmir said. “You can be Sankta Leoni this time.”

A little Suli boy raised his hand. “Can I be Sankt Adrik?”

The kids grumbled and let them go into the center of the circle with kids. Alina chuckled. If they only had known when Adrik wasn’t much older than them. Mal seemed to be thinking the same thing as he leaned his head against hers. “How times change,” he said. “We certainly do.”

“I think the crow’s feet make you look distinguished,” Alina teased, poking him next to his eye.

The children then decided who was going to be the Fjerdan, who runs over to Alina and Mal, squeezing their eyes shut. Mal chuckles and pulls them onto his lap, covering their face in his hands. “No cheating you hear me?”

The roles settled, the ‘Sanktyaa’ in the middle stood back to back. Little Elil stuck his arm inside his coat so he only had one arm. The other children linked arms and danced in a circle around them. They began their chant, skipping eight times to the right then four to the left.

“ _ Sankta Leoni, Sankt Adrik, cure the poison from the creek _

_ Sanktya here, Sanktya there, there are druskelle everywhere! _

_ I will run and I will hide, we all know we must survive, _

_ Sanktya find me before they do, or they will turn my lips all blue _ !”

Then they shriek and disperse. “Can I come out noooooow?” whines the assigned-druskelle. 

“Just a little longer,” Mal says playfully. When the children have all hidden, he’s finally allowed to run out. The assigned Sanktya rush against the druskelle to find them. A pang of sadness goes through Alina as she watches them. Luckily the saints find most of them, although Lyudmila did an excellent death scene after being caught by the druskelle.

When the winter sun begins its early descent they call the children inside. They take off their wet clothes in the mud room and hang up their furs, before lining up in the kitchen for their hot chocolate. Some of them are worn out and pass out with half-full mugs. Others curl on the rugs in front of the fire, crowding around the two of them.

“Can we hear a story?

“I wanna hear about the Sanktya Leoni and Adrik,” came a little high-pitched moan. A chorus of children agreed. “Can you tell us about them again?”

“If you insist,” Alina said. “What would you like?”

A chorus of different answers rose up. But one voice stood out to her. A six-year-old tugging at Alina’s skirt. “Can you tell us about them being in love?” she asked, all wide green eyes. 

“A  _ love _ story?” Alina teased. “I don’t know,” she turned to her husband. “Are you in the mood for a love story?”

“You know I enjoy a good love story,” he said, wiggling into his arm chair. Two kids had tried to squeeze on either side of him on the arm chair, a gaggle at his feet. Alina had one firmly planted on her lap, sucking on their thumb. It was everything and everyone she loved. 

“Get on with it then,” she said, waving at him.

“You have to start with ‘once upon a time’,” said a voice from their feet. “Or else it doesn’t count.”

“Fine, fine,” Mal said. “Once upon a time,” he said dramatically. There was a chorus of ooooooooooohs from the kids and one misplaced burp. After a mock glare at the offender, Mal continued. “There was a squaller. Not only was he a squaller but he was a saint. Kind of a grumpy one, but that’s the point.” He pitched his voice up. “And a beautiful alkemi. Sankta Leoni.”

“Sankta Leoniiiiiii,” one of the girls sighed. “I want to be as pretty as her.”

“This was when they were new saints, alone in Fjerda. Trying to save all the people they could from the druskelle. Especially the women who were jailed by the scary grisha hunters.” The kids booed wrinkled their faces adorably. Mal continued. “Sankt Adrik was so in love with Sankta Leoni. He thought she was the most beeeeeeauUUUUUtiful zowa in the whole world. But he didn’t know how to talk to her.”

“Not a surprise,” mumbled Alina under her breath. “So he decided he would try to make her fall in love with him. And how do you make a saint fall in love?”

He waited for the kids to shout their suggestions. They involved everything from cake to flowers to playing tag with them. Mal loved to change this part each time. “The first thing he did was go to a field of flowers and picked her all the flowers he could in a basket - he even had his sister help him! There were so many flowers -”

“Were they roses?” One asked. “Roses hurt.”

“No, they don’t need to be roses. What flowers do you think they should be Olga?”

“Daisies,” she said.

“Okay. Well Sankt Adrik carried all the daisies he could on the wind with the help of his friends and surrounded Sankta Leoni’s house. Well when she opened her door and was flooded by daisies, all she could do was - was -” he trailed off.

“What did she doooooooo?” one asked insistently, like they haven’t heard a version of this a hundred times.

“Was -” Mal threw his head back and let out the loudest fake sneeze ever, making some of the kids jump. “Ah-CHOO! Ah-Choo! All day long people could hear Sankta Leoni sneezing and Sankt Adrik felt so bad, he swept all the daisies away and made her soup.”

“Was it borscht? I don’t like borscht,” a boy said. 

“No it was something like curry soup,” Mal waved away. “But he felt so bad that he spent all weekend taking care of her until her face stopped swelling up. But Sankt Adrik was still determined to win her over so next he decided to have people cook her favorite foods to surprise her.

But when he wheeled great big carts of food to her home, it was full! Full of people!"

The kids gasped and Alina chuckled. Mal regaled with practiced ease. "They were all her neighbors, see. Adrik got his days mixed up and came over when Leoni was helping feed people for community dinner so all this hard work got eaten by everyone else and the Sankta didn't have but one bite."

The kids whined and booed and Alina knew Adrik would be embarrassed at the debacle. But it was sweet and they were all on the edges of their seats. "Our one armed hero was thwarted again. Now, he decided to dance with her at the winter fête. She was the most beautiful person there in a big dress -"

"Can it be yellow?"

"- a big yellow dress like the sun. He tried to dance with her but her card was full the entire time. Everyone wanted to dance with Sankta Leoni. She danced and danced and at the end of the night her feet were so sore our hero helped her home."

The kids all cried out about how unfair it was until Mal held both his hands up.

"But now Sankt Adrik was out of ideas, and money. He asked all his friends for help. He had no idea what to do. So he decided to take her to the prettiest place he knew. He took her to a beautiful-" he cupped his hand to his ear and waited for all the suggestions. "Lake. The most beautiful magical lake ever. He turned to Sankta and said,

"I have nothing to give you Sankta. I want to give you everything and instead I have nothing. How could you be with half a man like me?"

There were dejected sighs, even from the boys. "But Sankta had more to say. She said you brought me flowers and took care of me when I was sick. You fed my neighbors my favorite foods. You helped me home for want of nothing. Amd still you show me beautiful things. I should be so lucky to have a man like you."

"Did they live happily ever after?" A young boy asked, wide-eyed.

"No, even better," Mal said. "They lived rich lives. They saved more women and fought for what was right together. Sankt Adrik the Uneven and Sankta Leoni of the Waters. What do you pray to them for?"

"To always find our way home," the children recited dutifully. Alina smiled. 

"And Sankt Adrik found his way home to her."

They cheered and dissolved into giggles until it was time to usher them into bed. The fires had burned low when they found their way back, Alina sliding into Mal's lap. Sure his belly protuded more than his youth and there were lines on his face - but Alina thought it matched all her own wrinkles and bumps well.

"Adrik would kill you if he knew you told his engagement story like that," she teased.

"He barely looks a day over thirty, he can suffer a little more," Mal brushed off. 

"The best stories have a little truth in them," Alina said softly. "Can you tell me the story of Sankta Alina of the Fold?"

"There was a girl and a boy in Keramzin. They fell in love before either of them knew it. They both died, and then they lived happily ever after," he recited softly. "And all was well."

**Author's Note:**

> I did not beta this so apologies for mistakes, I'll look over it later. Thanks for reading!


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